Rug Orientation

November 10, 1985|By Yvette Cardozo

FARSHID LIVIEM FINGERS THE small, thin rug gently. He strokes its muted green and brown threads as one would a favorite child. ''Of 100 Herekes, one does not come out this fine,'' he says, absently patting the rug's 24 carat gold flowers.

Four years ago, Farshid was selling that rug for $15,000 and predicting it's value to triple in the coming years. Instead, the rug today would probably fetch no more than $8,000.

For 10 years, from 1970 to 1980, there was a rug boom the likes of which had never been seen before. ''Many times you had 1,000 percent increases in that period,'' explains Bill Ruprecht, director of the rug department at Sotheby Parke Bernet, one of the nation's largest auction houses.

Indeed, one Florida rug dealer remembers a particular silk and wool Laver rug from the Iranian village of Kirman purchased in Palm Beach in 1977 for $4,000 that sold two years later at Christies in New York for $40,000.

Then, suddenly, there was a new type of buyer at Sotheby's auctions in New York -- not the rug dealer, but what one Sotheby rug expert calls ''just your average home owner,'' who would walk out with a $4,000 rug under each arm.

Then came the bust, or, as Ruprecht terms it, ''the correction of the market.''

''The very best art probably is more expensive today that it has been at any point in the last 25 years, but what people consider the very best has been whittled down,'' Ruprecht says. Similarly with he very best carpets: The $30,000 carpet of five years ago, is selling today for $50,000. However, the ''merely very good'' carpet has dropped to half its former price.

All of which proves Ruprecht's point: Rug buying is a risky business for the uninformed.

But most ordinary folk aren't into rugs for real investment. What they're after is decoration, plain and simple. However, it doesn't hurt if that decoration appreciates a bit over the years. So whether you're buying for investment or decoration, knowing something about rugs can be handy.

WEAVING WAS MENTIONED IN THE OLD Testament, and there is a rug still in existence that dates back to 500 years before Christ. It was used to wrap the body of a warrior prince buried in Siberia, and it became entombed in ice (and thus preserved) until the burial chamber was opened by grave robbers.

Mankind's largest and undoubtedly most expensive rug was a 400-by-100- foot, gold-woven, gem-studded carpet that weighed two tons and was made in the 6th century for a Persian king.

Europeans began weaving ''Oriental'' rugs in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the French and Polish became especially good at it. But through much of this time, carpets remained precious works of art ordered

Europeans began weaving ''Oriental'' rugs in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the French and Polish became especially good at it. But through much of this time, carpets remained precious works of art ordered by royalty. Even 100 years ago, only the rich could afford them.

Machine-made rugs changed all that, giving us wall-to-wall carpeting anyone could buy. Area rugs suddenly went out of style.

Then, fired by inflation and the drive to sink hard-earned money into anything tangible, people began buying Orientals again. The difference was, they no longer needed to be wealthy to enjoy an Oriental rug. Nor were they necessarily looking for an investment.

Still, it helps to be aware of what makes a quality rug.

True Oriental rugs are made by hand: the craftspeople meticulously tie strands of wool, silk or cotton into knots around horizontal and vertical threads. Generally, the more knots per square inch, the better the rug.

A 7-by-4-foot rug with 300 knots per square inch can take a year to make. Rugs with counts of 2,500 knots per square inch are in existence. They feel like velvet and the design is so intricate, it looks like a photograph.

A hand-made rug -- even a cheap Indian piece -- will at least hold its value in the long run. A machine-made rug will not, but it does cost much less.

To tell if a rug is machine- or hand-made, flip it over and look at the back. The design on the back of a hand-made rug will show as clearly as on the front. The design on the back of a machine rug looks hazy and dull.

Also, machine rugs are too perfect. The rows are absolutely even, the design has no flaws. In hand-made rugs, you can expect to find designs that are uneven in size. Sometimes, you'll see stripes of different tones across the rug's face.

Telling wool from silk is not as easy as you might think. Usually, wool has a duller finish. Silk has a luster and the colors change slightly under differing light conditions. Also, silk feels cool to the touch.

But there is also something called ''art silk,'' which is actually mercerized cotton and is much cheaper than real silk. It has that silk luster and cool feel, but if you spread the fibers apart, you'll see the art silk strands are twisted like threads of cotton. Silk strands are not as distinctly twisted.